A biomarker guided approach in heart failure

Abstract

Heart failure is one of the commonest diagnoses presenting to physicians in the community or hospital care. Symptoms are often subjective, with clinicians having to rely on clinical assessment and radiological imaging to manage these patients. Treatment is often symptomatic with no clear therapeutic goals as yet identified. To date, there are no objective measures to diagnose, predict, prognosticate or guide therapy in compensated and decompensated heart failure, which is why a novel biomarker guided management approach is gaining so much momentum in the clinical community. This review encompasses recent data on this new approach and details on the potential clinical benefits of the most widely studied cardiac biomarkers currently available.